From your experience, what makes someone a bad player? Could they be categorized?

Bad is probably an incorrect term and an oversimplification. How I would classify this person getting passed would be that they weren't very athletic, they didn't try hard, they weren't progressing with their technique etc. Basically back then if your not tapping other blues and purples at all how could you be expected to become a purple? Unlike a McDojo, promotion would depend upon the ability to perform at the level expected of that belt. That is what made bjj different is that you couldn't earn a belt by time alone or by paying certain amounts of money. You had to be able to perform.

Now, I mention these things but please don't interpret that I agree with them. One of the things that pissed me off was the attitude that you needed to enter and win in competition to advance. I didn't have and still don't have much interest in competition. I wanted to learn it because it was fun as hell and because I could actually use it on the street in conjunction with my other MA's. (I had rowdy roommates and somehow back then we were always fighting.) I actually trained at a really good bjj school who's team does excellent in competition but I left because it was oriented only towards bjj competition not MMA or self defense application.

Originally Posted by Ronin

We really do have to take every individual situation as an individual situation.
Nowadays you CAN have BJJ Blue Belts tapping purples and browns, even possibly blacks, why?
Because of cross-over, a BJJ Blue could be a Judo 3 or 4th dan for all you know.

This is definitely true and is much more common today.

Originally Posted by Ronin

I think that, withholding BB to add the mystique of then meaning more than they do, is ALMOST as bad as giving them out like condoms at a high school, BOTH lead to McDojoism, one just takes longer than the other.

This was also the situation. Getting black was a huge deal then but in many cases long overdue. I will say though the difference was noticeable between what I would consider to be earned BB's (including way over earned BB's) and the "switched around instructors to get my BB" guys or the "went to __________ to get my BB" guys. There were places to go to get a BB faster and many took that route.

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:icon_twis .
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without spilling your Guinness.Sun "Fu Man JhooJits" Tzu, the Art of War & Guinness

Bad is probably an incorrect term and an oversimplification. How I would classify this person getting passed would be that they weren't very athletic, they didn't try hard, they weren't progressing with their technique etc. Basically back then if your not tapping other blues and purples at all how could you be expected to become a purple? Unlike a McDojo, promotion would depend upon the ability to perform at the level expected of that belt. That is what made bjj different is that you couldn't earn a belt by time alone or by paying certain amounts of money. You had to be able to perform.

Now, I mention these things but please don't interpret that I agree with them. One of the things that pissed me off was the attitude that you needed to enter and win in competition to advance. I didn't have and still don't have much interest in competition. I wanted to learn it because it was fun as hell and because I could actually use it on the street in conjunction with my other MA's. (I had rowdy roommates and somehow back then we were always fighting.) I actually trained at a really good bjj school who's team does excellent in competition but I left because it was oriented only towards bjj competition not MMA or self defense application.

This is definitely true and is much more common today.

This was also the situation. Getting black was a huge deal then but in many cases long overdue. I will say though the difference was noticeable between what I would consider to be earned BB's (including way over earned BB's) and the "switched around instructors to get my BB" guys or the "went to __________ to get my BB" guys. There were places to go to get a BB faster and many took that route.

Like you said, in many cases, it was long overdue.
But on purpose.
I mean 10 years to get a BB in BJJ would bascially make a BJJ BB an equal to a 3rd dan in Judo for example, technique wise, but the sheer amount of time in the art.

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:icon_twis .
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without spilling your Guinness.Sun "Fu Man JhooJits" Tzu, the Art of War & Guinness

Funny, when I read that for some reason I put a Brooklyn accent to it. Just need to add an (s) to you.

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:icon_twis .
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without spilling your Guinness.Sun "Fu Man JhooJits" Tzu, the Art of War & Guinness

After bullshido got bored of this topic, it went tangentially crazy over at the previously maligned jjgear forum. Some brown belt disagreed with a purple over the topic at hand (whether or not low ranked people should be teaching). The brown claimed he couldn't be taught anything by the purple.

They threw down. met up and the purple subbed the brown in two minutes.

Yet again, the butterfly flaps it's wings in China, and two guys throwdown in the States.

Not only does the man kick ass he's extremely eloquent, unlike the fuckstick he tapped. His writing were one of the posts that I sent to Joe Moreira.

If Joe Moreira wants me on the mat, I'm only like an hour away from him, so it wouldn't be out of the question. I wouldn't mind at all getting schooled by my grandmaster. But what would that prove except that a 6th degree BB can tap a lowly blue belt... but we already knew that right?